How “The World’s Biggest Asshole” PSA Made it to the Light of Day
This is the story of a client who came to its agency with no money and a request to get Millennial men to think about dying. Tough job, right?
The campaign that came to be, “The World’s Biggest Asshole,” is a multiple award-winning PSA, including the Webby’s People’s Choice Award and the Adweek Arc Award.
At Cannes Lions last week, the client, David Fleming, president-CEO of Donate Life America, and Joe Alexander, the chief creative officer of The Martin Agency, shared the often humorous—and challenging—tale of how the campaign came to be.
Fleming came to The Martin Agency with the challenge to drive organ donations. He said that rosy images of donors saving lives were just not cutting it with Millennials men, who are critical to the organ donor registry program because they tend to be risk takers and are therefore more frequent donors.
In the campaign, a fictional character makes a complete mess of his life in a small town where everyone knows him, but becomes a hero in death as an organ donor.
Getting the word “asshole” approved through the layers was the tough part and a few suggested replacements included “douchebag” and “ass clown.” The campaign went viral generating more than 100 million views so far. The Donate Life national registry too took a mega leap from 149 per day to fan average 1,080 a day during the first week of the campaign.
Watch the spot:
